


The Same Sunset

by AuditoryCheesecake



Series: A Cheesecake's Tumblr Shorts [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adoribull - Freeform, Established Relationship, Fluff, Just a Giant Pile of Fluff, Kinda?, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 08:47:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6698017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuditoryCheesecake/pseuds/AuditoryCheesecake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you look too closely for something, you could miss what's already there.<br/>(Also on Tumblr)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The More Things Change

**Author's Note:**

> Pulled over from Tumblr because it's a diptych now, and should be read together.

Bull was starting to wonder if it would happen, if things would change. It seemed logical, the next step in this whole… thing.

He was certain of himself; as certain as he could get, at least. He’d never put much thought towards it before. But the thought of Dorian settled warm in his chest every morning they woke up next to each other, persisted throughout the day like water in a rainforest: so inescapably present in every thought and feeling that it was practically background noise. He’d never put much thought towards poetry either, and couldn’t decide if Dorian would find the comparison flattering.

The thing was, he loved him. He’d killed a dragon for him, he’d try to write poetry for him. Bull knew where he stood. Actually, being in love was almost restful, if you didn’t expect anything in return.

Not that Dorian didn’t give, not that Dorian was selfish. Dorian gave him trust, gave himself, gave Bull an anchor, a center to orbit when his thoughts broke on the shores of Seheron. Dorian didn’t take anything the Bull wasn’t already willing to put in his hands. But Bull was lost, long gone over this mage, and he knew that telling Dorian would scare him. Dorian was not quick to trust others, and still had yet to learn to trust parts of himself.

But, something would happen, sooner or later. The next step. Dorian would love him, or Dorian would leave him. Bull waited, and watched, and tried to predict which would happen first. He hoped whichever it was happened soon.

But nothing happened. Nothing changed, and it kept on that way for months. They danced in a quiet corner of Halamshiral. They fought red templars and Venatori and dragons. They fell into bed together more nights than not, Bull breathing in every sound and scent, holding Dorian long after he’d fallen asleep, kissing him awake in the morning. He hoarded the feeling of Dorian, each moment, while he had them.

He went chasing giants with the Chargers and Dorian went to the Hissing Wastes with Adaar.

Bull missed Dorian like a limb the entire time they were apart. No, less like a limb, and more like… he’d known a ‘Vint scholar in Orlais, too radical for the Imperium, and very old. Her eyesight had dimmed in the last years of her life, and when Bull had known her she was constantly wearing what she called her “lentium”, ground crystal lenses that magnified the books she read. Without Dorian at his side to complain about the weather and his aching feet, Bull felt like that old woman without her lentium. Like the world might be a little less sharp. Krem said he was pining, and Bull was hard-pressed to argue.

Bull and the Chargers crossed the causeway into Skyhold at sunset, tired after pushing hard to finish the journey that day. Dorian was leaning nonchalantly against the wall like some sort of statue, chatting to the guard posted at the gate. Bull saw him shade his eyes and watch them approach. 

He had thought that seeing Dorian again, seeing him safe, would ease the ache in his chest, but instead it expanded and and rose into his throat. He wanted to say something clever, he wanted to see Dorian smile, but he couldn’t seem to form any words.

Dorian said something teasing about the travel-dust on Bull’s boots when he reached the gate, but Bull just swept him into his arms and buried his face in the crook of Dorian’s neck, inhaling his clean, familiar scent. Dorian made a surprised noise, and the Chargers chuckled, but they passed into the keep and Dorian melted into his arms.

The sun sank onto the edges of the Frostbacks, and Bull was home.

“Are you alright, Bull?” Dorian said after a long time, voice gentle. “Did something happen?”

Bull breathed him in more. “I just missed you, Kadan.” It felt like an admission, too much like he was asking for something that Dorian couldn’t give him. He pulled back.

Dorian’s hands found their way onto Bull’s face, cupping his cheeks softly. He looked up into Bull’s one tired eye, and Bull didn’t know what he saw. Nothing changed.


	2. The More They Stay The Same

Dorian wondered when the Chargers would return. He shouldn’t expect them for a day at least, and yet he was pacing the battlements, even pestering the guards who stood at the gate and welcomed the ceaseless stream of pilgrims. His thoughts turned in tight circles.

He had been in love before. He’d had passionate affairs and tragic obsessions. He’d nearly asked three men to run away with him (and at least one would have gone, apparently.) He’d never been happy. Not like this.

A place to come back to, a bed to wake up in. A man who told him he was beautiful and never seemed to doubt that he was also strong. More broadly: friendship, people with whom he could drink and not watch his words. The book and alcohol selections were admittedly lackluster, but some sacrifices must be made.

Dorian had been in love, but _being_ loved was still proving to be something of a revelation. And not the long-suffering sigh type of love that was Sera thumping his back as he groaned into a vile hangover “cure” or even the dragon-fierce protective type of love that was Adaar solid at his side facing his father. That was… its own type of change, to realize that.

But to fall asleep secure in Bull’s arms, to talk dead philosophers and smirking innuendos across a campfire, to know that Bull was willing to at least try anything Dorian asked of him (even to wear a shirt to meet the Empress) was new. Terrifying, this change. Heady, the power that came with being loved.

The fear was new, as well. Seeing Bull small for the first time, waking from nightmares. Small again, somehow, on the healer’s cot. Small, staring at his hands, the first night that Dorian slammed Bull’s door behind him and strode angrily back to his books. The knowledge that Bull could be hurt, that he could hurt Bull, was the worst part of being loved. What a change, from keeping only his own hide and heart intact.

He leaned against the cold stone of the gatehouse, ignored the jump of his pulse when he recognized Bull’s horns among the group the trudged slowly across the causeway. He watched each Charger critically, looking for missing faces, injured limping, arms in slings, anything beyond weariness from a day-long march. They seemed whole, and the guard beside him smirked at his breath of relief. He might have asked her more than once if she thought their errand to the Emerald Graves had been dangerous.

He stifled the urge to run to Bull like a maiden in a tale, her hero returned. Truly, being loved had changed him.

It had changed him enough that Bull’s arms around him, Bull’s breath against his ear and his heartbeat under Dorian’s hands mattered far more than a jibe from Krem or a chuckle from Rocky or the eyes of all the Inquisition.

He stood and breathed Bull’s travel dust, pressed against the center of his chest. The thing about being loved by a man like Bull, Dorian realized, was that you were likely to fall in love as well. That was alright, he decided in the same moment. It wouldn’t be that big of a change.


End file.
